Disabled technologies pave the way for next generation mobile Web

August 3, 2006

Scientists at The University of Manchester have a launched a new project which seeks to combine web accessibility with cutting-edge mobile phone technologies.

The aim of the three-year project is to develop a host of new software with the potential to make the mobile web as simple to use as the internet.

Currently, websites have to be re-designed to work on mobile phones. This is due to the fact that many conventional websites can't be displayed on small screens. Consequently, both the content and the choice of websites available on the mobile web are limited.

The RIAM project will draw on the experiences of blind and visually impaired users and the technologies they use to surf the internet, such as screenreaders, in a bid to simplify the content of conventional websites so that they can be accessed via the mobile web.

Dr Simon Harper from the University's School of Computer Science will lead the £205k project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, alongside semantic web expert Professor Ian Horrocks and web accessibility expert Yeliz Yesilada.

Dr Harper said: "Mobile web users are handicapped not by physiology but technology. Not only is the screen on the majority of phones very small, limiting the user's vision, but the information displayed is difficult to navigate and read.

"Add to this the fact that the content displayed is determined by a service provider and not the user and you have a web which is not very accessible or user friendly. Our aim is to change this by enabling web accessibility and mobile technologies to interoperate."

A core part of the project will be the development of a validation engine which will screen websites to ensure they are accessible and mobile web compatible.

The validation engine will work in tandem with a transcoding programme which will de-clutter web pages and reorder them into a web mobile friendly format. Once transcoded the aim is to let the user determine how the pages are displayed on their mobile phone.

Dr Harper added: "Screenreaders used by blind or visually impaired web users are very good at stripping web pages down into text only formats but what we want to achieve are content rich formats which are just as accessible."

After more than 20 years making the web a slightly more interesting and interactive place, albeit one that pandered to designers' worst excesses and (in pre-broadband days) led to interminable download waiting times, the ...

`It is a year since I last wrote about Adobe Flash and why everyone should stop using it. Since then, the leaks from the hack of the mass surveillance company HackingTeam have revealed three serious bugs (called zero-day) ...

If vendors could choose the key marketing rule of thumb for the past decade, you might learn they did it with two words, Personalize This. From sneakers to t-shirts to news feeds to music services, marketers believe consumers ...

Recommended for you

It sounds like a science-fiction nightmare. But "killer robots" have the likes of British scientist Stephen Hawking and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak fretting, and warning they could fuel ethnic cleansing and an arms race.

A startup team calls their work a product. They also call it a social movement. Many people in the over-7,000 islands in the Philippines lack access to electricity .The startup would like to make a difference. Their main ...

Are some people fed up with remembering and using passwords and PINs to make it though the day? Those who have had enough would prefer to do without them. For mobile tasks that involve banking, though, it is obvious that ...

Visionect, which is in the business of helping companies build electronic paper display products, announced that Sydney has launched e-paper traffic signs. The traffic signage integrates displays from US manufacturer E Ink ...

0 comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.